


Suit of Silver, Soul of Gold

by LuckyLectio



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, MT Prompto Argentum, MT!Prompto, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Poor Prompto Argentum, Soulmates, Writing on Skin, but it's mt!prompto what do you expect, mild body horror
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:28:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29243595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyLectio/pseuds/LuckyLectio
Summary: Soulmates were people you could rely on, people you could trust to help and support you no matter the circumstance. Sometimes it was romantic; holding hands, sharing lunches, kissing. Other times it was platonic; just being good friends, kind back and forth banter, supporting each other in whatever life throws at them.But all of that was for people, not MT Units....Right?-Or-An MT!Prompto + Soulmate AU.
Relationships: Gladiolus Amicitia & Prompto Argentum, Prompto Argentum & Ignis Scientia, Prompto Argentum & Noctis Lucis Caelum
Comments: 33
Kudos: 151





	1. Script of my Soul

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Full Color](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12425403) by [orphan_account](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account). 



If anyone asked, 234 did not have any soulmates.

Soulmates were for people. People like the scientists and civilians. He often saw people like this with writing on their arms, little notes of love or endearments, reminders, or day-to-day updates. Sometimes whole paragraphs marked the skin in tiny scribbles or large looping cursive he could barely read; all professing not just words, but a connection. A connection to another soul out there somewhere in the vast world beyond the metal walls he knew.

Most often, these people met, got to know each other, and became important parts of each other’s lives. Sometimes it was romantic; he’d see people holding hands, sharing lunches, kissing. Other times it was platonic; just being good friends, kind back and forth banter, supporting each other in whatever life throws at them.

That’s what soulmates were. Romantic or platonic, soulmates were people you could rely on, people your could trust to help and support you no matter the circumstance.

But all of that was for people, not MT Units.

MT Units were machines, objects, things created in a lab. Their only purpose being for research and war. They were not supposed to have souls, or what the lead scientist called ‘ego.’

If an MT Unit was ever found to be writing on their skin, they disappeared. During the inspections, the scientists would command them to confess if they’d seen any writing on their skin. The first MT Unit 234 knew that had admitted to it was gone the next day. 234 had seen them later, their body strapped to a metal table, long dead and left to cool.

So, years ago, when scrawled inked words started appearing on his skin, 234 thought it must be a mistake. He wasn’t supposed to have a soul, or soulmates to write to. He trembled in the darkness of his containment pod each night, staring in disbelief at the scribbles on his arms he couldn’t even read.

More than that though, he thought the words were his death warrant. For months after the first words appeared, he lived in fear of the next inspection.

Some part of him questioned that if he was a machine, if he was supposed to feel fear.

Thankfully, the scientists, or anyone apparently, couldn’t see what soulmates write on a person’s skin, only what the person writes themselves.

234 only found this out one day when his whole troop was forced to strip for a surprise inspection. His soulmates had been bickering back and forth all morning, lengthy conversations absolutely covering every speck of space over his pale arms and a some of his torso, so he thought for sure he was going to die. He was surprised they didn’t take him in then and there, the writing was so obvious. But they worked their way down the line of assembled MT’s, and when they got to him, the scientists lifted his ink-covered arms and didn’t bat an eye.

“Unit 234, have you seen or read and writing on your body since your last inspection,” the scientist droned, clearly bored and unaware of 234’s mounting panic.

 _They… they can’t see it?_ He wondered, briefly baffled before snapping back to the question. He was supposed to tell them. It was an order, he… he couldn’t refuse an order. A machine couldn’t _refuse_. But in his mind he saw that other MT Unit, strapped to a table, their dead eyes pleading with him to keep quiet.

“Negative,” 234 intoned blandly, proud of how his voice didn’t tremble. And it was only a half-lie, as no MT Unit was able to read.

A machine shouldn’t be able to tell a lie, either, a small voice reminded him.

The inspector just checked something off on their clipboard and continued to the next MT, leaving 234 shocked and heart thundering in his ears.

Four MT Units were taken that day for having or admitting to writing on their skin, only to disappear into the depths of the facility.

So, no, if anyone asked, he did not have any soulmates.

That was years ago now, and his reading skills had improved a bit thanks to his chatty soulmates. It was safe to read their banter, if he was careful to do so out of sight, but he could never write back. He wasn’t confident enough in his ability to write anyway, never having held so much as a pencil his entire life.

Late at night, using the dim slivers of light that filtered through the seams in his containment pod, he would slide off his gauntlets and read through the script etched onto his skin that day.

Sometimes it would be drawings, bored little doodles of other people or creatures he’d never seen before, often with a ‘ _Pay attention to your studies, Noct_ ,’ somewhere nearby.

Other times it would be appointment reminders, or complaints, or jokes. One of them, ‘Specs’, he thought their name was, enjoyed puns. They used them only occasionally, but the others complained every time. 234 liked them for their clever wordplay, though he didn’t always understand the context.

The third one, ‘Gladio,’ would sometimes rant on and on in whole paragraphs about whatever book he was reading. Reading books was forbidden for MT Units, so 234 enjoyed these rants the most, especially when Gladio would quote the stories word for word. He spent a long time memorizing and learning new words this way, as his normal vocabulary was fairly limited.

Once, Noct he thought, got so annoyed with Gladio’s book that he wrote out the entire script to something called a ‘movie’ he’d watched (something about bees?) to take up the rest of the space on his arm. It left 234 endlessly confused, but the absurdity of it made getting through the next few days much more bearable. Thinking about insects suing the human race was somehow very satisfying as he was forced to scrub down the blood from the research rooms.

For all the research done in those rooms, 234 could never figure out what the scientists were trying to solve with their tests. He’d grown used to it, and assumed it was to win ‘the war.’ It was all the researchers talked about; better weapons, better airships, better machines. All for some distant fight in some far off land 234 knew nothing about. All he knew about was tests and training, his entire troop designated not to be deployed, but to test improvements for those that were.

It was an endless cycle of experiments, some more extreme than others.

And one day, 234 found out just how extreme they could be.

“234, 237, and 245, report to Research room B-7,” a scientist wielding a clipboard whisked into the training room where his troop had been practicing drills. Interruptions like this were not uncommon, so 234 didn’t think anything of it as he and the two other MT Units obeyed.

The room was clinical and clean like the multitude of other such rooms, but that’s not what gave him pause. Three metal tables had been set up, scientists bustling around them preparing an absurd number of tools, far, far too sharp for his liking.

A cold sweat formed on his skin beneath his armor and he chewed his lip to bleeding behind his mask. _MT’s don’t feel fear_ , he thought. _We’re machines. I’m a machine, a machine for the Empire_.

He didn’t quite manage to convince himself before the lead researcher himself, Verstael Besithia, stepped in. The metal door closed behind the man with a clang, sealing his fate as final as a coffin. The fear only jumped ever higher, and he knew then and there that he was going to die.

The three of them were strapped to the tables, and 234 thought a little frantically about that other MT years ago that died this way for confessing to his soulmates’ writing. Had the researchers found out somehow, that he had writing on him, too? He’d been so careful, had never even touched a pen or considered writing back for the danger of being found out.

He thinks now that maybe he should have, if only so they’d know of his existence. He was going to die here and they’d never know how much he liked Noct’s drawings, or Specs’ jokes, or Gladio’s stories.

They would never even know he existed.

He wants to beg for a pen, even as the scientist nearest him strips him down and disinfects his skin. He wants to write a goodbye, or maybe a thank you, for all their words that got him through the tougher days. He wants them to know how much he loves them.

He doesn’t want to die.

Cold metal touches his thigh, and he has all of a second to glance down to see a circular blade set against it, before it turns on.

He blacks out.


	2. Severed Syllables

Noctis wakes to his fifth alarm, muting it instantly without even looking at it. Thankfully, he still has two more to sleep through before Ignis shows up and drags him out of bed. Groaning, he rolls over, only to drop like a stone off the edge of the mattress, landing with a muted thump onto the carpet. He doesn’t even open his eyes. Well, Noctis thinks groggily from his place on the floor, might as well get up now and avoid Ignis’ lecture later.

He stands and shuffles off to the bathroom, fumbling out of his pajamas as he goes. He’s halfway done sleeping through his shower when he notices two new lines drawn on him, one circling each of his upper thighs. Oddly, the ink is nearly white, pearly in a way not unlike a scar, and drawn impressively straight. He stares at them for a minute before shrugging. It was probably some weird joke from Gladio.

After his shower he dresses for his classes, but grabs a pen before pulling his slacks all the way up. He scrawls a hasty ‘ _What’s with the lines?_ ’ on his right leg, just below one of them. None of them usually wrote anywhere besides their arms or chest, unless they were trying to be sneaky. Writing in a non-obvious spot was just asking for the message to be missed. He tosses the pen away, making a mental note to check for a reply later.

But when days pass and the lines remain with no reply or explanation from Ignis or Gladio, his curiosity finally gets the better of him. The three of them are together at Noct’s apartment for dinner and to go over some upcoming events, but they all know it’s so Ignis can blatantly use them as taste-testers for his latest culinary endeavors.

“So who drew the lines on their legs?” he asks outright, a little frustrated at the lack of reply on his multiple notes he’s written in response to the lines on his legs.

Gladio stops midway through taking a bite, looking confused. “Thought that was you?”

“I thought it was _you,_ why would I keep drawing circles around my legs?” Noctis argues.

They both turn to Ignis, who, thinking about it, is probably the only one among them capable or patient enough to repeatedly draw such precisely straight lines. Ignis isn’t usually the type to just draw random lines though, all his messages having purpose and meaning (unless he was in the mood for puns).

But Ignis is already shaking his head, eyebrows drawing down. “May I see?” he asks.

Gladio, having no shame whatsoever, strips off is pants. There, just under the edge of his boxers, the pale lines stood out clear as day on his tanned skin. ‘ _Quit with the weird lines_ , _Noct’_ is written clearly below them in Gladio’s blocky handwriting.

“You… replied?” Noctis asks, confused.

“What? ‘Course I did. Neither of you wrote back,” he rumbles, the lack of replies had clearly been bothering him, too.

Noctis doesn’t say anything, only standing to peel off his slacks. Ignis goes to gripe at him for leaving them in a heap on the floor, when he snaps his mouth shut in shock. There on Noctis’ legs were the same damn lines, and just below them the multiple questions Noctis had written in varying degrees of fading.

But nowhere among them was Gladio’s reply.

Nothing, they found out after some frantic tests and not-so-mild panic, that they wrote beneath those lines ever appeared on each other, no matter how long they waited or what kind of pen or marker they used.

It was as if their legs simply no longer existed.


	3. Words to Walk Tall to

234 wakes to the stench of blood and metal, too disoriented and pained to do more than twitch. His body was in so much agony he couldn’t even think past a disbelieving _I’m… alive?_

His heart was thumping erratically, pulsing in time to the pain, and his vision came and went with each beat. He could see the scientists milling about, writing notes and cleaning up the surgical area. The other two tables were empty, he noticed. Empty of anything except red stains.

“Unit 234 successfully survived limb augmentation. Units 237 and 245 failed. One-third success rate unviable for other troops, will reconsider with further testing,” Besithia’s cold voice spoke nearby, recording his notes on the surgery into a tape recorder.

Besithia’s voice never failed to incite dread, but that’s not what was worrying him right now. What did he mean by “limb augmentation”?

234 tried to take inventory of himself through the pain. Head? Throbbing. Arms? There and still strapped to the table. Torso? Seemed okay, though it was splattered with blood. Legs? ….

….his legs.

His legs were _gone._

In their place were mechanical prosthetics, the cold metal clamped onto sockets implanted into the stumps of his thighs. They looked not unlike the metal greaves he usually wore, only now he couldn’t feel them. There was no metal joints pinching his skin, or sweat tickling the back of his knees, or the winter cold aching his toes. It was like there was nothing beyond the burning pain still tearing through him mid-thigh.

He wasn’t a machine, he decided suddenly, fiercely, past the shock and agony.

He wasn’t a machine.

But they were damn well trying to make him one.

In his mind he saw himself, left dismantled on the same table. He looked down, only to see not flesh and blood, but wires and metal. His chest was a hollow metal cavity, no heart there to pump. Instead, plugged in its place was a glowing red magitek core. When he blinked back to reality, his pale chest is heaving with shallow breaths.

_I have to get out of here._

He tried to move the legs, but all it resulted in was pain so strong his vision whited out. The things barely twitched. How was he going to escape if he couldn’t even stand?

Unfortunately, the scientists had the answer. He spent months afterwards in endless tests learning to use legs that weren’t his own, all under the watchful eyes of the researchers around him. Months stumbling around and falling, months being studied and pried at, months haunted by phantom feelings of limbs that no longer existed.

The new legs were strong, and fast, if he could work them properly. But they weren’t _his,_ and he hated them. He hated them almost as much as he hated the madmen that put them there.

That small voice, growing ever stronger in his mind, reminded him that only people were capable of hate. He wasn’t one of their machines. He could feel any and all emotions they could, and that included love, too.

He worried, often, if his soulmates he cherished ever wrote on their legs if he’d be able to see it. But no matter how long he glared at them, no words ever appeared on the cold silver metal.

During those same months, he planned; trying, desperately, to figure a way out of this metal prison before these people ended up taking more than his legs. It was nigh impossible, he could barely walk most of the time, and the only ones allowed in and out of the facility were _people_. Or, at least, the scientists or officials. As far as he was concerned, the MT Units here were more deserving of that word, if anything, as the victims he’d come to recognize them, and himself, as.

It was still strange to associate himself with that word: _people_. However, the more he looked at what the scientists were doing, the more justified it felt. In his mind, his MT brothers had more morals than most of the other people here; they at least didn’t spend their days meticulously cutting others open in the name of war. 

A war, which apparently was getting much more intense. He still didn’t know anything about it, only passing conversations from the researchers; talk of modifying the MT’s to survive in the heat of a place called Liede, or adjusting the dropships to handle the dip in atmosphere around a large crater thing, or discussing how best to invade a city on the sea.

The arguments almost always revolved around a place called Lucis and how to break a wall, which was rather confusing to 234. He’d seen firsthand the ballistic power some of the larger MA-X models could accomplish and didn’t know how any kind of wall could possibly withstand such an attack.

There were a lot of things he didn’t understand about the world outside the facility, but he was more than ready to learn. His soulmates had given him a glimpse of it with their words and stories, now he wanted to see it for himself.

And maybe, hopefully, meet them someday, too.

It was all he thought about for several months more, every time the tests got too much, or they strapped him down, or his metal legs gave out beneath him;

He stood back up, and walked tall.


	4. Memos and Mementos

A portrait of his mother, the late Queen of Insomnia, watched them from atop the mantle in his father’s study. The artist had captured her perfectly with paint and pigment, her smile serene as she observed the room from a balcony of pink roses. Noctis could imagine her walking among the flowers in the garden, hand in hand with Regis.

His father was seated nearby, waiting patiently while Noctis gathered his thoughts. Noctis had meant to come ask his father about the odd scarred lines he and his soulmates now bared, but his mother always came to mind whenever he entered this room. It was apparently one of her favorite places to read.

“Do you… write to her anymore?”

His father’s eyes creased a little sadly; the sorrow was an old wound, but healed enough he could speak of her fondly. “Sometimes.”

Regis only had one soulmate, Aulea, and she had set alight his world from the moment they’d met. His world was a little more dim now without her here, but all the more worth living if for the son she left behind.

When his son didn’t reply, Regis continued. “Is something troubling you, Noctis?”

It was rare that they got to meet like this, rarer still that Noctis asked to speak with him. Their schedules and royal duties ate away at any amount of bonding time a typical family would have. Their time was limited to dinners once a week and the occasional formal event. All in all, their little family was fraying. Regis wondered what Aulea would think.

Noctis doesn’t say anything for a long while, and Regis lets him have all the time he needs. Whatever is weighing on his son’s mind has clearly been troubling him for a while. Finally, Noctis takes a deep breath.

“If… If your soulmate had died,” Noctis starts, and Regis immediately tenses in his chair. “Would you know?”

“Noctis…?”

“Did you know with mom?” And Regis feels the air punch out of him. Noctis seems to realize what he said a moment too late, wincing, “Sorry, I didn’t--“

“…I was there at the time of her passing,” Regis says ever a sullen moment, his voice coming out much quieter than before. “But you already know this. Noctis, you’re worrying me. What is this about?”

Noctis chews his bottom lip, his hands flexing repeatedly into fists.

“I… we think we have a fourth soulmate.”

Regis’ eyebrows rise in surprise. “What makes you so uncertain? Have they not written you?”

“That’s just it, they _haven’t_!” Noctis throws his arms up in frustration and starts to pace the room. “Not so much as a scribble. But then, suddenly, a few weeks ago two lines appeared and they won’t go away. None of us drew them, it _has_ to be someone else!”

Regis watches his son pace with a growing pit of dread. His son wasn’t one for emotional outbursts, preferring to keep things to himself. Seeing him this way, pacing, nervous, _frustrated_ ; was truly worrying. And if this turned out to be what he thinks it is….

“That, and nothing-–“ Noctis starts.

“--Nothing appears beneath the lines?” Regis finishes his sentence as a question. Noctis snaps his head up to stare at him, stopping mid-stride.

“You... know about this?”

Regis sighs.

“When one grows up as a wartime king, they tend to know an unfortunate number of veteran soldiers.”

Noctis stills, processing his father’s words. Veteran soldiers, young and old, were far more common than they used to be these days. The war between Lucis and Niflheim was only getting worse, each battle ending with more injured soldiers than the last. They were losing more soldiers to Niflheim’s seemingly infinite Magitek Troopers than they could recruit.

And every loss left someone at home without a soulmate.

“But they… can’t be…” Noctis couldn’t say it. They couldn’t be _dead_ , not before they even got to meet.

“You can still write to Ignis and Gladio?” Regis asks.

Noctis nods, looking lost. He sits heavily in the nearest chair. “Just not our legs.”

“Then they’re still alive, wherever they are. You would not be able to otherwise.”

 _Alive._ Somewhere out there, they were alive.

Likely severely injured, but _alive._ Noctis traces a thumb over where he knew the lines lay hidden under the fabric of his slacks.

It made sense, what his father was saying. Soulmates could only write to each other because they all shared the same ‘canvas’, if anyone in a bond was hurt or their skin damaged beyond repair, that part of the ‘canvas’ became unusable. Noctis knew this in some capacity; there was a whole patchwork of scars along his lower back from a daemon attack as a child that couldn’t be used. But the spot wasn’t exactly reachable, or easily viewable to send a message on.

But to not be able to use the _entirety_ of their legs?

Noctis pales. Somewhere out there, their soulmate was hurt. Badly hurt.

“We have to find them.”

“We will, my son.”

\---

Noctis leaves the study shortly after, his father promising to look into any of the recently injured Crownsguard or Kingsglaive that had any such injuries. Noctis wanted to do more, but couldn’t exactly go tearing through hospitals and trauma centers without a plan or knowing who to look for. So he makes his way back to his quarters on autopilot, not really even registering the pristine hallways he walks through, the guards lining the walls, or the people bowing to him. He was too lost in thought.

They had a soulmate, someone he, Ignis, and Gladio were all meant to meet. Someone they were meant to support and cherish and be there for, no matter the circumstance. Someone that was genuinely meant to be a part of their lives.

And they didn’t even _know_.

Noctis stops dead in his tracks, finding himself standing in the middle of his quarters without even really knowing when he got here.

He didn’t know how or why their fourth soulmate had never replied. There had to be a reason. They could be blind, or physically unable to, like a coma, or paralyzed, or a dozen of other horrible circumstances his brain supplied on an endless frantic loop. They’d lost their _legs_ , and none of their soulmates were there to help them. They didn’t even know their name.

They’d never replied before, but that didn’t stop Noctis from taking up a pen. The tip rested atop his forearm for a long moment, briefly unsure of what to say to this sudden stranger that had somehow been there all along.

He could ask their name. Or ask where they were, or maybe why they never replied.

Instead, he writes what he truly wants to know the most.

_Are you okay?_


	5. The Do’s and Don'ts of Defecting

_Are you okay?_

234 stared at the words for a long while. That same question or variations of it, was appearing more and more often lately. It looked mostly like Noct’s scribbly handwriting, but sometimes Specs or Gladio would write it, too. Always in obvious spots, like the palms of his hands or his forearm.

It made him worry something was wrong, like if one of the others were sick or hurt. He wanted to ask them too, if they were okay. But he couldn’t risk it, not with the scientists seeming to have taken him on as a personal pet project.

They ran him ragged with endless tests and training with his new mechanical legs, long past the point of exhaustion. He all but collapsed into his containment pod each night. He barely had time to think, let alone figure out a way out of this place.

His chance came only after the scientists got bored with him, nearly half a year since getting the prosthetics. He’d just passed his new top speed, sprinting at a sustained thirty miles per hour for a solid forty minutes. His legs had barely begun to tire, but the test was cut short by Besithia himself.

“Tch, I expected more,” the man sneered, looking at his results. 234’s heart instantly plummeted in fear, fully expecting to be decommissioned. Instead, the man continued, “We’re done with this one. Send it to the field, maybe then we’ll get some use out of it.”

 _The… field?_ He froze, but before the fear could set in he was being tossed a rifle and crammed into a containment pod. The scientists that worked on him over all these months were already talking about their next project. He didn’t even have time to figure out how he felt about that before his pod was loaded onto the next available dropship, the bay door closing on the only world he knew.

What followed after was hours of rattling metal and near darkness as he tried not to panic. He wasn’t even with his test troop, the MT’s stored around him were fully developed, daemonic, and mindless. They probably wouldn’t shoot him outright, but if he tried to run? He’d be riddled with bullets or cut to bits instantly.

Except… _except_ , he thought, a little desperately. Dangerously. His top speed was _thirty miles an hour._

He could run. He could run as far and as fast as possible, hide somewhere, survive. Maybe. He’d need to be out of line of sight of any riflemen or snipers when he bolted, at night if possible for a lesser chance of being spotted.

The next thing to worry about was where it was they were going. He hadn’t been briefed, and he doubted the processed MT’s around him even knew how to speak anymore to tell him. He barely even remembered his own voice, for that matter. The war he’d heard about was in a place called Lucis, but that didn’t mean they weren’t just sending this dropship to guard some random bunker in Niflheim’s snowy tundra, either. He’d never survive the cold, if that were the case.

His mind spun in endless circles, frantic with “what if’s”. He’d been thinking about defecting for months now, but now that he had the chance he had no idea what to do or what to expect. It’s not like MT’s were given any sort of survival training. He’d have to figure it out as he went.

That is, _if_ he managed to escape alive.

To take his mind off of it, he wriggled off one of his gauntlets in a practiced motion, barely making any sound. The words scribbled there were almost impossible to read in the dim light, but he felt at ease just knowing they were there.

 _Best of luck today,_ one read. He recognized it as Specs’ crisp and precise lettering.

 _He’s got this,_ read Gladio’s dense print.

 _Thanks,_ came one of Noct’s ever-short replies, in a hasty scrawl.

 _As always, please let me know if you need any help,_ Specs wrote again.

He almost sobbed. In his mind, the words felt like they were meant for him. That his soulmates were there for him, even if they didn’t know it.

Someday soon, maybe, they would.

\----

He’d literally almost made it.

234 was three steps away from the fence when his metal foot kicked a misplaced canister, sending it spiraling across the concrete. Only one MT patrolman was nearby, but that’s all it took. Spotlights whipped in his direction, half a dozen MT Units activating at once. However, by the time the lights reached where he’d been, 234 had bolted over the fence and plunged into the darkness.

Alarms howled into the night air, but he’d already made it to a patch of trees and all but flung himself into the brush. He actually thanked his armor for sparing him the thousands of cuts and bruises he’d likely have without it. 234 plowed through, desperate to get as far away from the base as possible.

They’d landed in a base wedged into the hills and mountains of a place called Cleigne. It was surrounded by trees and plants, which were an absolute wonder to 234. The most experience he had with plants were the small ones in pots, or the stick-thin trees in squares of concrete he saw a couple times passing the off-limits areas of his former facility, and he was pretty sure those were plastic.

He could hardly see them anyway as he whipped past them through the darkness of night. But he’d be able to admire them later, he told himself, when he was leagues away.

So he ran.

He ran hard, as fast as he was capable, tearing across the foreign landscape until the base was nothing but a faint nightmare, the alarms nothing but a memory, and the world he was from became more like a scar than an open wound. His heart beat in rhythm to his rapid footfalls, every desperate step away lifting another sliver of weight from his shoulders, until all at once the pressure of fear disappeared, and he felt like he was _soaring._

The cool night air gulped into his lungs was warmer than he was used to, but sweeter than the stale air at the facility. The sounds were different, too. Past the heaving of his breaths, bugs and critters either screamed at his presence or went quiet entirely, giving life to the area around him so much more than the scheduled silence of the research halls.

If he wasn’t fleeing for his life he’d want to stop and observe it, to sink his fingers into the dirt and plants, maybe take his helmet off and feel the air. But right now, all he could focus on was the beat of his heart and the ground thudding beneath his metal feet.

Until there wasn’t any, and he stepped out on open air. All he got out was a startled yelp, before he was clattering down a cliffside like a particularly abused tin can.

He rolled to the bottom, sliding to a halt in a heap of stones and dirt. His facemask was caked with mud, and he reached up with a shaky hand to pry the thing off his face. He took a desperate gasp of air into his bruised lungs, groaning it out in the next exhale when the rest of him made it known just how much it didn’t appreciated his crash course in, well, _crashing._

234 flops himself over onto his back in a creak of metal. He lays there, eyes closed, just taking a few minutes to catch his breath. The world had gone quiet in lieu of his noisy arrival, but picks up again after a minute or two, filling the air with the sounds of chirping bugs and the soft rustle of critters in the underbrush.

He peels his eyes open, squinting past the sting of sweat coating his skin and face in a sheen of exhaustion. He’s not sure how long he’d been running, but it had to have been hours. The sky above him was clear, sparkling with stars and set aglow with a brilliant half-sphere of the moon just starting to dip towards the horizon.

The skies of Niflheim were never as clear as this, almost always clouded over with winter storms and snow. The earth around him, too, was entirely different. Instead of snow and ice freezing his skin, the ground he lay on was warm and tall blades of grass tickled his face.

234 knew he should keep moving, find someplace to hide, something to eat and drink, but for just a minute or two more he just wanted to rest here, surrounded by this beautiful landscape. He didn’t know where he’d end up or if he’d even survive, so he might not get to enjoy such a place for a while after this.

No sooner had he thought that, that he heard a groan, a rumble so deep it was like the earth was tearing itself apart. Not thirty steps away, a mass of blackened smoke wrought itself into existence, taking shape as a massive arm.

234 scrambled to his feet, heart leaping to it’s now normal breakneck pace as his panicked thoughts tried to figure out what the hell he was looking at. The arm alone was thicker than 234’s whole body, and was pulling an equally massive body up from the depths of whatever hell it spawned from.

By the time the thing levered out a sword the size of a car, then lit that sword _on fire_ , 234 was already running.

This time, he didn’t stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompto: Wow, this place is beautiful, look at all the stars!
> 
> Daemons: let us introduce ourselves,,,,,,


End file.
